dellanx
April 19th, 2020, 18:26
Later on Erastus the 3rd, the outsider creatures, were lying on the frozen icy ground eviscerated and lifeless in the preternatural darkness of the Vale of Tears.
The chamber they were in had a domed round ceiling which rose thirty feet overhead. Bars of ice block alcoves flanked a door to the north, as well as passages to the east and west. An elaborate ice throne sits within a raised alcove to the south, surveying the chamber, but Venarius told them not to approach the throne. . Heavy manacles are inset into the throne's arms, back, and legs. Several more sets of manacles are spaced about the chamber's walls, interspersed with various diabolical instruments of torture. A fifteen-foot-diameter cage of ice bars that extend from floor to ceiling dominates the center of the room, the cage is now empty. Devil’s bodies are on the iced over floor.
They were able to bend the bars to the west and Veshurae searched the room to the west, while the rest of the party searched this room. She saw that a battle appears to have occurred here recently. She noticed that a number of charred humanoid skeletons lie strewn about, and a lifelike stone statue of an ogre points at the north wall with an arm that ends in a broken stump-the hand and the barbed falchion it held lie on the floor near the southern stair. She searched the corpses and found a Ring of Counterspells and a potion that she kept, and the rest she gave to the group for safe keeping.
They proceeded up the stairs, they saw a vast hollow that opens in the face of the frozen waterfall, forming a high-ceilinged ice cavern. Here, out of the same ubiquitous ice, has been constructed a traditional Irrisen village of multilevel cottages topped with steep, gabled roofs. Many are built directly into the jagged ice walls that form the cavelike hollow. The tinkling of water can be faintly heard above the moaning of the wind from somewhere in the cluster of buildings. Near the lip of the ice cliff stands a larger structure that appears to be surrounded by a ring of statues.
At the top of the stairs they noticed that a battle appears to have occurred here recently. A number of charred humanoid skeletons lie strewn about, and a lifelike stone statue of an ogre points at the north wall with an arm that ends in a broken stump-the hand and the barbed falchion it held lie on the floor near the southern stair. They moved on, and came to a small snowdrift that has gathered here bears a single, recent humanoid footprint that is plainly visible to anyone who passes by this way. They examined the area and realized it to be the boot-clad footprint of a medium creature of slight build.
Queen Yovan sent her prying eyes to check the cavern and found a maze like passages moving this way and that way throughout the village. It took some time, but they did their job, accept many doors were still closed and had to be manually opened.
The eyes found a door to a second-floor sepulcher has been broken open, the ice biers have been crushed and the interred bodies devoured. Their equipment lies strewn about in ragged heaps of frozen cloth and metal, along with newer bones and fresh splashes of frozen blood. They realized that the fresh bones and blood are from one of Queen Elvanna's parties, which were buried and later devoured, by some large cannibalistic beast.
The eyes saw an elegantly sculpted ice fountain sits in the middle of this small square at the center of the necropolis, depicting a flock of winter geese as they take flight. A jet of water springs from the top of the fountain, tumbling down into the basin below. Miraculously, the water remains unfrozen despite the frigid temperature.
In the south of the complex the eyes saw a structure resembling a large, two-story cottage with wide double doors at its front and rear. Above the northern doors is a giant clock face, ten feet in diameter. The clock bears strange, arcane symbols instead of traditional numbers and has four hands-one short, one long, one forked, and one wavy-that appear to be keeping time in no recognizable system. Rows of identical white marble statues depicting a bent old crone holding a scythe with a blade of dull-gray metal stand at the building's base. These statues appear to be on railed tracks of ice that loop around the sides of the clock building, from one set of double doors to the set on the opposite side.
Then the eyes came back to Yovan, and they went to open the rooms one at a time, Vanarius checked for traps and possibly disable them and King Alexander opened the doors. Most of the time the rooms just contained the dead remains of that long ago execution of Queen’s Tashanna’s followers, but sometimes the door was trapped and Alexander frame took the bulk of the damage.
Venarius neared the strange clock, and noticed two constructs marching out from the southern side of the building, and made a hasty retreat, but not before he discovered some important text:
A stitch in time saves nine, But what loop will the witch queen heed? In pointless slaughter The Old Crone's daughter A hapless mob did lead. Now she sits in tomb that's frozen,
The traitors' blood all spilled Upon the path that she had chosen, Enthroned with collar gild.
Ringed in steel, three loops times nine Prized from the luckless seat, Supplicants kneel, of porcelain fine, The banished queen to meet. It matters not who's dared to come The demon's soul to claim, The weak shall die, the strongest live And forever more remain.
They puzzled on the text, but could not figure out it’s exact meaning, although they knew that it had something to do with the twenty seven chains they saw in the round throne room of torture and something to do with porcelain?
As they neared the strange unfrozen fountain, in the square they spotted a maddened frost giant. That the prying eyes did not spot it, was amazing, but the mad gnarled creature had chunks of flesh in its beard, and blood and filth was all over it. Alexander tried to negotiate with it, but it roared and attacked him. It was very dangerous and would have hurt the great king, if not the group coming to his rescue. Even so, the beast fought with great ferocity far beyond where an ordinary beings would have dropped dead, then when its body could simply not withstand the horrific damage their weapons and spells caused it, it dropped finally dead.
They proceeded down a north west stairway to a set of double doors. They opened the doors, and an eerie sight greeted their eye as this large chamber was entered. They saw row upon row of identical, life-size ice sculptures depicting a bent-backed old crone with a skull-like face standing in perfect ranks. A sense of woe seems to radiate from each statue, and dark arcs of power crackle across their surfaces and leap from sculpture to sculpture.
This did not deter Lelani, because she moved forward and started channeling positive energy which destroyed the ice sculptures, and in their place all that was left were porcelain dolls of Queen Tashanna. They took one doll each then proceeded to the round ice throne room, where they each acquired a chain link.
They moved back to the area thy nicknamed the “Coco Clock, and Riris was the first on to put her chain down with the doll inside it, and she was gone. The other companions quickly followed her lead, and then they were standing in a chamber made of featureless white stone. The walls, flooring were all made of the same stone, above them an equally plain forty-foot-high ceiling had dark smudges of ash in a shape of a humanoid on the ceiling and one wall. Directly ahead is a throne of the same white stone, with an inscription on its base. A life-size figure of a beautiful woman carved from ice, with a twisted, rune-scribed golden collar around her neck, sits upon the throne. Before her, a crystalline sphere stands on a white stone pedestal. Opposite her is a wide circle on the wall that displays a blurry image of the cliff outside the Witch Clock.
A voice of a woman is heard through the gloom, my dear half sister, but how, Sorshen said you would be trapped in that orb forever, never mind I am glad you are here so I may kill you myself. The woman was Ilivorr Karanasi, the elder daughter of Queen Elvanna, she cast chain lightning on the group, but not ordinary run of the mill kind, but Mythic Chain Lightning spell, which really hurt the group. She was really hurting them, elated Ilivorr Karanasi tried to cast another spell but the powerful sorceress Veshurae counter spelled her, and she was not able to cast her destructive spells. Veshurae hit her companion demons and her with a prismatic spray spell, that luckily poisoned and killed one of the demons dead before it was able to walk five steps. So Ilivorr Karanasi, being the daughter and guardian of this Frozen Cenotaph, proceeded to move toward the group and use her supernatural abilities. She attacked with death curses and Freezing Embrace, a horrific attack that dealt damaged and had the potential of freezing her foes alive. She yelled at her half sister Riris, that horrible punishment awaited her if she managed to slay her, this threat did not deter the group from attacking the mad winter witch.
Ilivorr Karanasi, blamed her sister for interfering and said that they would never find Runelord Sorshen, because she was safe in Holvirgang, the city of frost giants, then she said, I should not have said that. Meanwhile Venarius disabled the last companion demon, and came after the mad winter witch. The fight raged, and Alexander had to withdraw because the mad winter witch almost slew the valiant king, but soon Crimson, Venarius and Shyrg took his place. They fought her valiantly, but right before she was slain, she managed to freeze Venarius and Shyrg into ice statues. Fortunately for them, Veshurae was able to cast two limited wishes and bring the Venarius and Shyrg back from eternal freeze [To Be Continued….].
The chamber they were in had a domed round ceiling which rose thirty feet overhead. Bars of ice block alcoves flanked a door to the north, as well as passages to the east and west. An elaborate ice throne sits within a raised alcove to the south, surveying the chamber, but Venarius told them not to approach the throne. . Heavy manacles are inset into the throne's arms, back, and legs. Several more sets of manacles are spaced about the chamber's walls, interspersed with various diabolical instruments of torture. A fifteen-foot-diameter cage of ice bars that extend from floor to ceiling dominates the center of the room, the cage is now empty. Devil’s bodies are on the iced over floor.
They were able to bend the bars to the west and Veshurae searched the room to the west, while the rest of the party searched this room. She saw that a battle appears to have occurred here recently. She noticed that a number of charred humanoid skeletons lie strewn about, and a lifelike stone statue of an ogre points at the north wall with an arm that ends in a broken stump-the hand and the barbed falchion it held lie on the floor near the southern stair. She searched the corpses and found a Ring of Counterspells and a potion that she kept, and the rest she gave to the group for safe keeping.
They proceeded up the stairs, they saw a vast hollow that opens in the face of the frozen waterfall, forming a high-ceilinged ice cavern. Here, out of the same ubiquitous ice, has been constructed a traditional Irrisen village of multilevel cottages topped with steep, gabled roofs. Many are built directly into the jagged ice walls that form the cavelike hollow. The tinkling of water can be faintly heard above the moaning of the wind from somewhere in the cluster of buildings. Near the lip of the ice cliff stands a larger structure that appears to be surrounded by a ring of statues.
At the top of the stairs they noticed that a battle appears to have occurred here recently. A number of charred humanoid skeletons lie strewn about, and a lifelike stone statue of an ogre points at the north wall with an arm that ends in a broken stump-the hand and the barbed falchion it held lie on the floor near the southern stair. They moved on, and came to a small snowdrift that has gathered here bears a single, recent humanoid footprint that is plainly visible to anyone who passes by this way. They examined the area and realized it to be the boot-clad footprint of a medium creature of slight build.
Queen Yovan sent her prying eyes to check the cavern and found a maze like passages moving this way and that way throughout the village. It took some time, but they did their job, accept many doors were still closed and had to be manually opened.
The eyes found a door to a second-floor sepulcher has been broken open, the ice biers have been crushed and the interred bodies devoured. Their equipment lies strewn about in ragged heaps of frozen cloth and metal, along with newer bones and fresh splashes of frozen blood. They realized that the fresh bones and blood are from one of Queen Elvanna's parties, which were buried and later devoured, by some large cannibalistic beast.
The eyes saw an elegantly sculpted ice fountain sits in the middle of this small square at the center of the necropolis, depicting a flock of winter geese as they take flight. A jet of water springs from the top of the fountain, tumbling down into the basin below. Miraculously, the water remains unfrozen despite the frigid temperature.
In the south of the complex the eyes saw a structure resembling a large, two-story cottage with wide double doors at its front and rear. Above the northern doors is a giant clock face, ten feet in diameter. The clock bears strange, arcane symbols instead of traditional numbers and has four hands-one short, one long, one forked, and one wavy-that appear to be keeping time in no recognizable system. Rows of identical white marble statues depicting a bent old crone holding a scythe with a blade of dull-gray metal stand at the building's base. These statues appear to be on railed tracks of ice that loop around the sides of the clock building, from one set of double doors to the set on the opposite side.
Then the eyes came back to Yovan, and they went to open the rooms one at a time, Vanarius checked for traps and possibly disable them and King Alexander opened the doors. Most of the time the rooms just contained the dead remains of that long ago execution of Queen’s Tashanna’s followers, but sometimes the door was trapped and Alexander frame took the bulk of the damage.
Venarius neared the strange clock, and noticed two constructs marching out from the southern side of the building, and made a hasty retreat, but not before he discovered some important text:
A stitch in time saves nine, But what loop will the witch queen heed? In pointless slaughter The Old Crone's daughter A hapless mob did lead. Now she sits in tomb that's frozen,
The traitors' blood all spilled Upon the path that she had chosen, Enthroned with collar gild.
Ringed in steel, three loops times nine Prized from the luckless seat, Supplicants kneel, of porcelain fine, The banished queen to meet. It matters not who's dared to come The demon's soul to claim, The weak shall die, the strongest live And forever more remain.
They puzzled on the text, but could not figure out it’s exact meaning, although they knew that it had something to do with the twenty seven chains they saw in the round throne room of torture and something to do with porcelain?
As they neared the strange unfrozen fountain, in the square they spotted a maddened frost giant. That the prying eyes did not spot it, was amazing, but the mad gnarled creature had chunks of flesh in its beard, and blood and filth was all over it. Alexander tried to negotiate with it, but it roared and attacked him. It was very dangerous and would have hurt the great king, if not the group coming to his rescue. Even so, the beast fought with great ferocity far beyond where an ordinary beings would have dropped dead, then when its body could simply not withstand the horrific damage their weapons and spells caused it, it dropped finally dead.
They proceeded down a north west stairway to a set of double doors. They opened the doors, and an eerie sight greeted their eye as this large chamber was entered. They saw row upon row of identical, life-size ice sculptures depicting a bent-backed old crone with a skull-like face standing in perfect ranks. A sense of woe seems to radiate from each statue, and dark arcs of power crackle across their surfaces and leap from sculpture to sculpture.
This did not deter Lelani, because she moved forward and started channeling positive energy which destroyed the ice sculptures, and in their place all that was left were porcelain dolls of Queen Tashanna. They took one doll each then proceeded to the round ice throne room, where they each acquired a chain link.
They moved back to the area thy nicknamed the “Coco Clock, and Riris was the first on to put her chain down with the doll inside it, and she was gone. The other companions quickly followed her lead, and then they were standing in a chamber made of featureless white stone. The walls, flooring were all made of the same stone, above them an equally plain forty-foot-high ceiling had dark smudges of ash in a shape of a humanoid on the ceiling and one wall. Directly ahead is a throne of the same white stone, with an inscription on its base. A life-size figure of a beautiful woman carved from ice, with a twisted, rune-scribed golden collar around her neck, sits upon the throne. Before her, a crystalline sphere stands on a white stone pedestal. Opposite her is a wide circle on the wall that displays a blurry image of the cliff outside the Witch Clock.
A voice of a woman is heard through the gloom, my dear half sister, but how, Sorshen said you would be trapped in that orb forever, never mind I am glad you are here so I may kill you myself. The woman was Ilivorr Karanasi, the elder daughter of Queen Elvanna, she cast chain lightning on the group, but not ordinary run of the mill kind, but Mythic Chain Lightning spell, which really hurt the group. She was really hurting them, elated Ilivorr Karanasi tried to cast another spell but the powerful sorceress Veshurae counter spelled her, and she was not able to cast her destructive spells. Veshurae hit her companion demons and her with a prismatic spray spell, that luckily poisoned and killed one of the demons dead before it was able to walk five steps. So Ilivorr Karanasi, being the daughter and guardian of this Frozen Cenotaph, proceeded to move toward the group and use her supernatural abilities. She attacked with death curses and Freezing Embrace, a horrific attack that dealt damaged and had the potential of freezing her foes alive. She yelled at her half sister Riris, that horrible punishment awaited her if she managed to slay her, this threat did not deter the group from attacking the mad winter witch.
Ilivorr Karanasi, blamed her sister for interfering and said that they would never find Runelord Sorshen, because she was safe in Holvirgang, the city of frost giants, then she said, I should not have said that. Meanwhile Venarius disabled the last companion demon, and came after the mad winter witch. The fight raged, and Alexander had to withdraw because the mad winter witch almost slew the valiant king, but soon Crimson, Venarius and Shyrg took his place. They fought her valiantly, but right before she was slain, she managed to freeze Venarius and Shyrg into ice statues. Fortunately for them, Veshurae was able to cast two limited wishes and bring the Venarius and Shyrg back from eternal freeze [To Be Continued….].